They took my bra because of the underwire. My breasts were free, but I was not. I couldn’t wear my sneakers from my husband because of the laces. And I could not bring in any of my pens to write poetry. They couldn’t let us have the things that made us comfortable or happy. We might kill ourselves, you know.
Tag: autobiography
9,19,29
Today I am 9, 19, 29.
I look out my window to the used days,
see saw toothed predators
hunting my small, oblivious
head in the long grass.
I am suffocated by the
fire and brimstone perfume
of my own being
as I tiptoe back and
forth between heaven and
hell each day.
I long to let my hair
cascade down my back,
to strip naked in the
unblinking square
and ask the strange things
with six rows of teeth
to take my shame from me
like an unwanted cloak.
Yesterday at dinner,
I was a vulture vivisecting
a yellow canvas,
my talons raw as milk.
Beginning to Veil

This is a photo of me from when I was pretty new to headcovering.